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Travel and Leisure

Travel + Leisure Misjudges Down Under Hotels

December 26, 2007 at 1:15 PM | 0 Comments

Travel + Leisure has put out yet another list of best hotels--this time it's the World's Best 500 Hotels for 2008 compiled by the mag's "global team of reporters and editors" from the results of the their World's Best survey.

Predictably, the lists is filled with Ritz-Carltons, Four Seasons, Peninsulas and Mandarin Oriental Hotels, although there are some small gems listed throughout.

However, there appears to be a mistake in the best hotels in Australia. In the hard copy of the magazine, T+L has listed the Four Seasons Sydney as the #1 ranked hotel in all of Down Under placing a special #1 logo next to the hotel description. But the Four Seasons only had a score of 86.93. They were actually beat out by one of our fave hotels--The Observatory Hotel (an Orient-Express hotel) which scored an 87.41. So why wasn't the Observatory listed as #1?

We've sent an email to T+L about this asking whether it was an editorial mistake or if there was some other unseen reason why Four Seasons beat out the Observatory and we're awaiting an answer.

We actually walked around the Four Seasons on our trip to Sydney last year and while it's a great luxury hotel in a great location near Circular Quay, it's also a massive building popular amongst business travelers. It just felt a little too hectic for us. We much preferred the peace and quiet and personalized service of the Observatory Hotel.